 How does homeopathy differ from conventional medicine? The main difference lies on the approach. Conventional medicine views diseases as localized in various systems and organs. Homeopathy views the body as a unity where one system or organ is intrinsically related to the other. For instance, to treat an ill patient with a cough, a homeopath would have to know the patient at mental, emotional, and physical levels because all levels are interrelated in a person, and disturbances on one level could create dysfunction on another level. For example, suppressed eczema could later manifest itself in a respiratory disorder such as asthma; or a long term suppressed grief could result later on in arthritis. Conventional medicine treats all diseases as if they were the same, therefore it treats them systematically, this for that: something to suppress the cough, something to dry the mucus, a laxative for constipation, something to ease falling asleep, analgesic for pain. For homeopathy no two people are alike or experience a headache the same way. Therefore a seemingly similar headache in two people could need different remedies because each person experiences a headache in a different way. Allopathic medicine comes from "allo" that means "other", and "pathy" that means "illness" or "suffering". By definition allopathy is "the method of treating disease by the use of agents that produce effects different from those of the disease treated." Homeopathy is just the opposite since it "treats disease by minute doses of drugs that in a healthy person would produce symptoms similar to those of the disease." Another basic distinction between the two systems of medicine is that in conventional medicine the aim is often to control the illness through regular use of medical substances, however, if the medication is withdrawn, the person returns to illness; it's only a way of controlling or suppressing the symptoms. Homeopathy's aim is the cure: "The complete restoration of perfect health," as Dr. Samuel Hahneman said. |
